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This week Canadian consumers and health regulators are facing a significant development in the vaping market, as the world’s largest tobacco company introduces VEEBA – an affordable and fancy disposable vape. Philip Morris is the last of the big tobacco companies to launching vaping products. It’s decision to put its deep pockets and extensive marketing...
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This week Health Canada released the results of its inspections of the instagram accounts of Canadian vaping suppliers. Just over half (53%) of the 304 suppliers failed inspection. The industry fared somewhat better on this test than they did on the previous round of inspections of their retail stores in the summer and fall of 2019. On those occasions, fewer than 1...
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Next week Justice McEwan of Ontario’s Superior Court will be asked for the sixth time to extend the insolvency protection orders under which Canada’s 3 main tobacco companies are maintaining “business as usual” while trying to negotiate an end to the lawsuits filed against them. In most respects, there appear to be no new developments in...
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In mid-August, Imperial Tobacco again raised prices on its tobacco products. As shown in the price list circulated to retailers and pasted below, they are now charging from $2.50 to $4.50 more per carton in Ontario. Price increases in other provinces have not yet been located, but they are usually imposed at the same time....
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Over the past couple of weeks, BAT (owner of Nicoventures and Imperial Tobacco Canada) has launched new promotions in Canada for its vaping products. This campaign is part of a global re-branding initiative the company shared with investors in March. This campaign can be seen as a test run of the federal government’s plans for...
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How much do tobacco companies make in Canada? Answering that question became more difficult about a decade ago, after all three of the traditional tobacco companies (BAT-Imperial Tobacco Canada, PMI-Rothmans, Benson and Hedges, and JTI-Macdonald) became fully-owned subsidiaries of multinationals and the fourth (Grand River Enterprises) remained a privately held operation. Over the past year,...
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During last week’s investor day, British American Tobacco made public many of its estimates of legal and illegal tobacco sales around the world. Combined with official reports from countries which monitor sales (like Canada and France), and with estimates from BAT’s competitors, these help give us a picture of what is happening to the global tobacco...
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In a series of presentations to investors today, British American Tobacco laid out its “new purpose” and unveiled its new look. Last year it was “transforming tobacco” and “accelerating delivery”. This year the catch phrase — trademarked of course — is “a better tomorrow. The new corporate purpose laid out by BAT’s management was “to...
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In recent months vaping companies have been warning that regulations aimed at reducing vaping will “drive people to cigarettes.” The recent “facts not fear” campaign run by Imperial Tobacco Canada, for example, predicts that regulations to protect young people from pro-vaping advertising will be “forcing consumers to go back to cigarettes.” Even some public health authorities – like...
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A key challenge for health regulators when facing emerging nicotine devices is the complexity and change in that market place. Unlike cigarettes, which researchers and regulators have generally treated as identical products across geography and time, next generation products like e-cigarettes vary greatly in their design, contents and marketing from place to another and from...
